


Listen, baby, we've got a feeling between us.

by surexit



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 17:19:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surexit/pseuds/surexit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray and Brad are apparently soul mates. They're not thrilled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listen, baby, we've got a feeling between us.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to derryderrydown for some quick help with plotting!

When Ray met Brad for the first time, it all went to shit. “Oh Christ,” he said, staring at this motherfucking Viking sergeant and feeling a little like he imagined a hooked fish might feel, being pulled painfully and unwillingly towards a new and probably unpleasant future. By the arrested look the sergeant had on his face, he was getting the same feeling. Ray closed his eyes and hoped for a miracle.

“I somehow get the idea, lance-corporal, that you know what the fuck is going on,” the sergeant said, icy face calm.

“Yes, sergeant,” Ray said. “You’re my soulmate.”

The sergeant had a word with Ray’s team leader, and Ray had to wear a double-weight pack on that afternoon’s run. He didn’t see Sergeant Colbert again for twenty-four hours.

***

By the time Colbert finally came to find him, Ray had given in to the pain and was curled on his bed, breathing deeply around the ache in his stomach. He was aware of the sergeant approaching when it started to ease a little. He rolled onto his back, stared at the ceiling, and contemplated shooting either Colbert or himself until the knock on the door came.

Colbert was out of uniform and looked in perfectly good shape, Ray noted resentfully. There were lines of tension around his eyes, but apart from that he was healthy and glowing, albeit in a pale and WASP-y way.

“I’m not Protestant, I’m Jewish,” Colbert said absently, and then blinked. A small vertical line appeared between his eyebrows.

“Thanks for that, I’ll log that away,” Ray said, gripping the door frame, just a little, to stop himself swaying.

“Did I just read your goddamned mind?”

“Soulmates,” Ray said, patiently. God, it was just his luck to get astrally hitched to Big, Dumb and Pretty.

“Right,” Colbert said, face unchanging, even though he had to have heard that last thought. Ray had made sure to think it extra-loud. “Let me in, lance-corporal, and we’ll have a manly heart-to-heart about this issue.”

At least there was a sense of humour lying underneath all the muscle and blondeness. Ray stepped back and tried to go for some sort of mocking bow, but the blood rushed to his head and he came up pale and gasping a little. Colbert fixed him with a narrow-eyed glare and then slid a hard hand under his elbow, ushering him to the couch and depositing him none-too-gently.

Colbert stayed standing over him. Looming. Ray wished his stomachache would go away. Except it was caused by fucking soulbonding magic, and the only way to make it disappear was to have sex with this stupid sergeant and promise to stay with him forever and generally do a lot of gay-ass shit. Ray flopped his head back against the couch back and glared hatefully at the ceiling, but not before he saw the careful blankness of Colbert’s face in response to _that_ delightful string of thoughts.

“Your roommates here?” Colbert asked.

“No,” Ray said. There was a spider’s web in the corner of the ceiling, a giant one. Awesome. He’d never noticed that before, but it must have been crouched there for at least a week or two, devouring unwary flies. Spiders were cool. They just ate their mates, none of this forever shit.

“Could you focus, Person?” Colbert’s voice was a sharp bark of frustration, but underneath it there was a touch of amusement that made Ray blink.

“Yes, sergeant,” he said, and sat up, trying to make his face look helpful and attentive. There was no mistaking it, the edges of Colbert’s mouth were turned up, very slightly.

“What’s caused this?” Colbert said briskly. “I’m not going to waste time pretending it hasn’t happened, given that I’m demonstrably reading your mind and I’ve been feeling like I’ve got the shits for the whole past day, and now I don’t.”

“Um,” Ray said. “It’s kinda genetic.” Colbert’s raised eyebrows definitely indicated that he needed more information, but Ray really didn’t want to admit the next part. He looked down at the carpet. Colbert waited him out, until finally Ray said, “Look, my great-great-grandfather was a fairy, right? In a non-gay way. He came over on a boat from Italy and ended up in Missouri.”

“That’s insane,” Colbert said blandly.

“I know, right? Apparently he had little cat feet.” Ray grinned down at the floor.

“I assume you haven’t inherited those,” Colbert said. “Or I would have heard about it.” Ray lifted a socked foot and wiggled his toes silently. “Right. What’s the endpoint of this... thing?”

“Soulbond,” Ray said helpfully, and caught the echo of a wince from Colbert’s mind. Great, now his side of the telepathy was starting to kick in. This thing was settling fast.

“Whatever it’s called. How do we break it?”

“Uh, one of us dies. Are you volunteering?”

“That’s bullshit.” Colbert was definitely starting to lose it a bit, which was great, because Ray was finally feeling like the calm, in-control one.

“Sorry.” He spread his hands. “Fairy rules. They’ve got some crazy shit going on, man.”

Colbert turned abruptly, and Ray half-struggled to his feet in protest, because fuck _no_ he was not going to be left in pain again just because this guy couldn’t roll with the punches, but Colbert was only taking a turn around the room, strides short and angry.

He returned to stand in front of Ray after a minute. “So what,” he said, “snap, we’re in love now? Because I have to say, I’m not feeling it.” His eyes raked Ray up and down, and Ray grinned because he could hear the slight edge of appreciation in Colbert’s mind, even as he tried his very hardest to project contempt with his face.

“You want this, sergeant,” he said, and tried to do a little shimmy. It probably wasn’t very effective, from Colbert’s scowl. “This is supposed to be a thing that makes us stay together until we realise that we’re meant to be. It’s just... it happens when you meet the person that you _could_... whatever. Love.” He made a face, because fuck talking about feelings.

“And fuck my career, is that it?”

Ray raised his hands. “Hey, I won’t tell and no one’s going to ask. Theoretically. I’m discreet like the wind. But if we ignore it it’ll get worse. I think we die eventually.”

Colbert finally sat down, in a chair opposite Ray. “This is like a fucking horror film,” he said after a short silence. He wasn’t talking to Ray. It was directed at Ray’s roommate’s potted plant.

Ray answered anyway. “Sorry.” He’d gone through life knowing this would happen at some point, and resenting it, but at least he’d had time to absorb it. It was startling to suddenly see it from the other side, and realise through new eyes quite how fucked up it was. He found that he didn’t really have anything to say, but he tried to send a bit of remorse towards Colbert, anyway.

He couldn’t tell if Colbert got it, but he did look away from the potted plant and make eye contact with Ray. “Okay,” he said. “One step at a time. You are going to explain a lot more shit later, and we are going to figure out the parameters. I want to know how long we can stay apart, how far away we can get, what the range of this mind-reading is -”

“It’ll get better with time,” Ray said hurriedly. “The staying apart thing. Pretty rapidly, I think, once we let it set.”

“Good, because if this becomes any kind of bar to my staying in the Marines I will strangle you with my bare hands. Right now, I’m going to go and see what I can do about getting you transferred to my team.” He stood up, and then hesitated. “Am I going to have to come back here straight after?”

Ray considered the question for a moment. “I think - I’m definitely feeling better. But we should - we have to. Uh.” He decided not to speak, and instead thought the word _consummate_ very clearly.

Colbert frowned, and then said, “One step at a time.” He smiled, suddenly, a broad flash of white teeth that changed his face. “I suppose it could be worse. You could be some kind of trailer trash - oh wait.”

Ray was startled into a laugh. “Fuck, homes, I bet my great-great-grandfather never predicted what disaster he’d bring to the family one day. I mean, do you listen to yourself? That is some grade-A, high quality, fancy educated gay shit.”

“Yeah,” Colbert said. “Still, Marines make do. I’ll be in touch with a sitrep.”

“Okay,” Ray said. Colbert showed himself out. Ray sat on the couch and listened to his footsteps fade away as he walked down the hall. That could _definitely_ have gone worse.


End file.
